settlements

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- U.S. House of Representatives leaders urged President Obama to veto a proposed U.N. Security Council resolution that slams Israel on settlements and urges a return to direct Israeli-Palestinian talks.

"We are deeply concerned about the Palestinian leadership’s decision to reject the difficult but vital responsibility of making peace with Israel through direct negotiations, and instead to advocate for anti-Israel measures by the United Nations Security Council and other international forums," says the letter sent Thursday.

New settler leader says coexistence is working, let the diplomats take a break.

01/25/2011

Gary Rosenblatt

Editor And Publisher

Naftali Bennett doesn’t fit the perceived profile of a leader of the Israeli settler movement.

He initially believed the Oslo plan would bring peace; he is a man of wealth, having helped found and serve as CEO of a hugely successful computer startup that he and his partners sold for $145 million in 2005; and he lives in Raanana, an upscale modern city of about 80,000, inside Israel proper.

Nothing is as it seems. The promise of Oslo and the two-state solution has collapsed into the equivalent of the honky tonk song in which a young couple dreams of living in a big two-story house. After years of cheating, secrets and small hurts, they get it. She’s got her story, he’s got his story, there’s not much peace in a two-story house.

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- J Street and Americans for Peace Now called on President Obama to withhold a U.S. veto on a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement building.

In a policy statement posted Thursday on its website, J Street noted that for 40 years and across eight presidential administrations, the United States has called on Israel to stop building settlements

I've been pretty critical of the Obama administration's approach to Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts, but I also have a lot of sympathy; they can't walk away and maintain international credibility, but every option for breaking the negotiating deadlock is fraught with risk of a backlash in Israel – and with political risk here.

What brought this into focus was a conversation I had yesterday with a longtime pro-Israel activist who generally favors an active peace process.

Update: Just one day after Atlantic blogger Jeff Goldberg expressed his anxiety that Israel is turning away from its democratic roots, a new poll suggests his concern may be justified.

In a survey by the Harry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah, “a full 44 percent of Israeli Jews support a letter issued by leading Israeli rabbis published earlier this month forbidding the sale or rental of properties to non-Jews. The survey reported that 48 percent of Israeli Jews oppose the rabbis' religious edict,” according to a report in Ha'artz.

That edict was termed a “perversion of Jewish and democratic values” by the Anti-Defamation League; I imagine those who share Jeff's concern about where Israel is headed will see that 44 percent as shockingly high in the Middle East's only democracy

Atlantic blogger Jeff Goldberg's anguished assessment that Israel could be well on its way toward abandoning the democracy that was a cherished value of its creators could be the most important blog of the year for Jewish leaders.